Ion implantation is a conventional technique for introducing dopants into materials such as semiconductor wafers. Dopants may be implanted in a material to form regions of desired conductivity. Such implanted regions can form active regions in resulting devices (e.g., semiconductor devices). Typically, during ion implantation, a source feed gas is ionized in an ion source. The ions are emitted from the source and may be accelerated to a selected energy to form an ion beam. The beam is directed at a surface of the material and the impinging ions penetrate into the bulk of the material and function as dopants that increase the conductivity of the material.
Conventional ion sources may have limitations under certain implantation conditions. For example, conventional ion sources may operate inefficiently at low extraction energies and/or high beam currents which may be used in implantation processes that form implanted regions having ultra-shallow junction depths. Molecules that can be ionized in a standard source conventionally used for atomic implants have been described in copending U.S. application Ser. No. 11/342,183, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there are significant problems and shortcomings associated with current ion implantation technologies.